ERA11LA392 · Robinson Helicopter R22 BETA
Ocean Helicopters Robinson Helicopter R22 BETA · Accident: part(s) separation from aircraft during initial climb
From PBI · West Palm Beach, FL to PBI · West Palm Beach, FL
Event
- NTSB case
- ERA11LA392
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Robinson Helicopter R22 BETA
- Aircraft type
- Robinson R22
- Category
- Helicopter
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N10786
- Operator
- Ocean Helicopters
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From PBI · West Palm Beach, FLTo PBI · West Palm Beach, FL
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Initial climb
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Part(s) separation from aircraft
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
During initial climb, about 200 feet above the ground, the helicopter's auxiliary fuel tank cap separated and entered the tail rotor system. The tail rotor became unbalanced and partially separated. The pilot subsequently entered an autorotation as the horizontal and vertical stabilizers also separated, and the helicopter landed hard. The auxiliary fuel tank cap was not serviced prior to the accident flight and the pilot reported that he checked the security of the auxiliary and main fuel tank caps during preflight inspection. The separated fuel cap was recovered and did not contain a restraining chain and gasket. The main fuel tank cap remained secured throughout the accident sequence and examination of that cap revealed that it did contain a gasket but not a chain. The helicopter manufacturer ceased installing restraining chains about 18 years prior to the accident; however, the accident helicopter was produced about 10 months before that and should have left the factory with fuel tank cap restraining chains. Review of the helicopter's maintenance records did not reveal any instance of the fuel cap restraining chains being removed in the field. Additionally, the investigation could not determine if the auxiliary fuel tank cap gasket was absent prior to the accident flight or separated during impact with the tail rotor.
Probable cause
Separation of the auxiliary fuel tank cap, which entered the tail rotor system. Contributing to the accident was the lack of a fuel tank cap restraint.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record ERA11LA392
- Event ID
- 20110710X70735
- Case number
- ERA11LA392
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: edc24a8945ece33e6d6c28bdd6004630fb11d6b311a685cd89a780730a4e2350; retrieved 2026-09-15T16:26:09.899Z.